O Is For Osteosarcoma – The ABCs Of Cancer

Have you ever experienced intense, agonizing pain? Patients with this kind of cancer do.

Osteosarcoma is a malignant bone cancer that people usually get when they are teenagers going through growth spurts, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Osteosarcoma doesn't discriminate between genders. Boys and girls both are just as likely to get it, and the disease usually turns up around the age of 15.

When Mario, Lisa and I went to Memphis for the St. Jude Country Cares seminar in January, we met two young people who had suffered from this disease. Both of them had it in their thigh bones, and had to have the bone replaced with metal rods that would grow with them.

Thankfully, they are both in remission now, going to college and living full and productive lives. What was very admirable to me, however, was that now that both of them are healthy and planning for the future, they both plan to come back to work at St. Jude as soon as they get their degrees.

As noted in "O Is For Osteosarcoma," the doctors at St. Jude use science to work miracles and end these kids' pain. But they can't do it alone. They need your help. Please become a Partner In Hope today, and your contributions will be used to help find a cure for this extremely painful disease.